The era where the PC is dominant in IT is rapidly coming to a close as we move towards a future dominated by post-PC devices such as smartphones and tablets, and if your business is reliant on the PC to keep the dollars flowing in then you’d better start working on “Plan B.”
The message that the era of the PC is coming to a close comes from a company at the heart of the industry – Dell.
In a proxy statement submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the company’s plans to go private, the company outlines, in very clear language, that the PC train has hit the buffers.
Outlines are the “various risks and uncertainties related to continued ownership of Common Stock,” and it makes scary reading for anyone operating within the industry, or who holds stock in the company. These are listed as:
“… decreasing revenues in the market for desktop and notebook PCs and the significant uncertainties as to whether, or when, this decrease will end…”
“…the overall difficulty of predicting the market for PCs, as evidenced by the significant revisions in industry forecasts among industry experts and analysts over the past year…”
“…the ongoing downward pricing pressure and trend towards commoditization in the desktop and notebook personal computer market…”